Manaka Mukaido
Manaka Mukaido (向井戸まなか) is the childhood best friend of Hikari Sakishima who has been looked after by him since the two of them were young. One of the students from Shioshishio. She is an indecisive middle schooler who is staying strong to avoid being prone to crying. Manaka is shown to have feelings for Tsumugu Kihara and is highly dependent on Hikari and Chisaki Hiradaira. As time passes, she starts to become more independent. After saving Akari Sakishima during the Ofunehiki festival and falling into the sea, she enters hibernation and takes on the role of the sacrificial maiden for the Sea God. After the time skip, she is found in the middle of the graveyard of Wooden Maidens near Shioshishio and brought to the surface while losing her Ena. She wakes up one week later and ends up staying with the Shiodome family. She had also lost the ability to fall in love as a result of leaving her post as the sacrificial maiden. Later, it is revealed that she has been in love with Hikari all along but decided to keep it a secret as she knew about Chisaki's feelings for him. In the last scene, Manaka's and Hikari's feelings are clear to be mutual as they look on to the sea together. Appearance Manaka is a beautiful fair-skinned young girl with long, straight, auburn hair and big, round blue eyes. She wears wing-shaped adornments behind her ears, which may be mistaken as fins. She has a petite and slender frame. Manaka also has quite a girly dressing sense. Personality Manaka is a sweet, energetic middle school girl who is also indecisive and staying strong to avoid being prone to crying, which provokes the irritation of Hikari Sakishima and the concern of Chisaki Hiradaira. Her personality gradually changes as the story progresses. She learns to become more confident in herself and understand the people around her, although she retains her kindness. History In her past, Manaka was always with Chisaki Hiradaira, Kaname Isaki, and Hikari Sakishima so that they could protect her. When Manaka and Chisaki were kids, there was one time they got lost. They had gone to the outskirts of the village into the outer sea to look for coral. Unable to find home, the two were saved by Hikari. Plot On the morning of her first day at a new school, one which, unlike the old one, is above the water, Manaka is berated by Hikari Sakishima for wearing the uniform of her new school rather than their old one. Manaka defends herself, believing that they need to fit in while Molang or Klonoa tries to yell at him, but Hikari remains persistent until Chisaki Hiradaira intervenes. However, Manaka decides to return home and change while her friends go on. Changing, Manaka returns to the meeting spot only to be fished up by a net from a fishing trawler and brought to the surface, much to her surprise.Nagi no Asu Kara Anime: Episode 1 At school, introductions get off to a bad start as Hikari gets into an argument with other boys and attempts to get Manaka on his side, forcing Chisaki to intervene again. Angry, Manaka tells Hikari she's not speaking to him any more. Deciding to cover her uniform, Manaka is given Chisaki's P.E uniform. While they put it on, Chisaki comforts her and tells her Hikari does what he does to protect and look after her. Agreeing, Manaka and Chisaki look out the locker room window and find Hikari on the running track racing the boy from the fishing boat, tripping and knocking him down. After school, Manaka waits at Narunami Shrine to get her spirit fire re-lit by Lord Uroko and waits for Hikari so he can help her. Visiting Lord Uroko, Manaka gets her fire re-lit and presents him with food made by her mother. Though happy when he compliments its smell, Manaka is horrified when he reveals he was complimenting her smell and asks if she is ovulated. Angry, Manaka throws the food in his face and runs away as he says he will curse her. Crying elsewhere, Manaka confides her fear in Hikari, believing that Lord Uroko will follow through on his words. The next morning, Manaka refuses to go to school and only upon being visited by Hikari does she reveal that Lord Uroko's curse turned her kneecap into a fish head. Insisting on not letting anyone but Hikari see, Manaka refuses to leave until Hikari ties up her knee to hide it. However, at school, the girls in Hikari's class, wanting to see her skin shine in the sun, take her aside. As she breaks free, the fish head makes an odd sound, embarrassing her and causing her to run away from school. As she runs through the forest, Manaka begins feeling weak due to being away from the water and collapses. Awakening in a bath tub, Manaka is shocked to see Tsumugu Kihara looking after her. Noticing her knee, Manaka asks him not to look, believing it grosses people out. Despite this, Tsumugu attempts to feed it, but is stopped before telling Manaka that she and the fish head are beautiful, which made Manaka have a slight crush on him. That night, Manaka is taken by Tsumugu back to the water, where she spots Hikari searching for her. As Hikari attacks Tsumugu, Manaka breaks the two of them apart, telling Hikari that Tsumugu helped her. With the boys not fighting, Manaka and Hikari return to the sea. In the next morning, Manaka's curse was lifted but Manaka was disappointed as Tsumugu was adoring the fish that was on her kneecap. Manaka then attempts to go to Uroko to become cursed again by throwing food at Lord Uroko but fails. She pretends the fish is still on her knee and goes to school with the cloth around her knee, hoping to fool Tsumugu. Ojoshi Ceremony The Ojoshi Ceremony was to stop the sea from destroying the land so the four of them including Tsumugu decided to do the ceremony. With the help of other people, they managed to finish just in time even though there were ups and downs. Akari actually suggested that she will combine the ceremony with her engagement resulting in her becoming the sacrifice. On the day of the ceremony, everything was going fine until the sea went wild. The sea god was reacting that there will be a new ojoshi. This resulted with Akari falling of the boat. Manaka and Hikari quickly jump in to save her. However, the sea pushed Hikari away which resulted with Manaka trying to save Akari. In the end, since the sea was to strong, Manaka decided to be the sacrifice and she swam down herself to where the ojoshi grave was at. Hikari was too late, and only Akari was saved. Doing the Ojoshi Ceremony again Since Manaka lost her feelings of love, Tsumugu thought of an idea to do the ceremony again in order to regain Manaka's feelings. However, the same thing happened as five years ago. The sea reacted to Manaka and tried pulling her back. Miuna jumps in to save Manaka and something happens. When the sea was about to attack Manaka, Miuna pushed Manaka away and ended up becoming the next sacrifice. Hikari and Tsumugu went into the ojoshi graveyard and managed to save Miuna. Manaka ended up regaining her feelings and the ceremony was successful. Relationships Hikari Sakishima The two have been close friends along with Chisaki and Kaname. Hikari is quite annoyed by her timid attitude and her indecisiveness and often threatens her for it, which causes Kaname, or Chisaki to always yell at him when angered, ironically. Hikari and Manaka have a crush on each other, but Manaka had a short crush on Tsumugu in the beginning, which made Hikari intimidated. Because of her apparent love for Tsumugu, Hikari decides to support Manaka's feelings for Tsumugu because all he wants to do is make her happy. Before the Ofunehiki, she was supposed to tell something important to Hikari, but due to her inability to fall in love, she forgot all about it, of which made Hikari devastated. Hikari believes that she wanted to tell him that she wanted to ask Tsumugu out and not him because she rejected him when he said he loved her. But, Hikari cares more about Manaka being happy than her feelings for him. It is soon seen that she is in love with Hikari, but hid her feelings from everyone so that Chisaki wouldn't be upset. Just like what Manaka told Tsumugu about him being the sun, she tells him that Hikari is the sea. He was always there for her and will be forever. At the final scene the two walk on the beach. Hikari and Manaka watch the sea together, now certain of their feelings for each other. Tsumugu Kihara At the beginning, Manaka is shown to develop a crush on Tsumugu because he saved her when she was unconscious. As the story progresses, she gradually starts developing strong romantic feelings towards him but later in one of the episodes, Manaka tells Tsumugu that he is like the sun, something she thought was warm, however unable to reach because she already was in love with Hikari. Manaka has also told Tsumugu to keep this a secret and not share it with anyone. Chisaki Hiradaira Chisaki is childhood friends with Manaka. Even though the two are best friends, they would have a fight once in a while, but in the end, they eventually make up. Sometimes it is difficult for Chisaki to be with Manaka because she likes Hikari, but she is always there to protect her. Manaka is in love with Hikari, but she only kept it quiet for the sake of Chisaki not being sad because she knew Chisaki also has feelings for Hikari. Kaname Isaki Kaname is childhood friends with Manaka along with Hikari and Chisaki. He helps Manaka when she is scared of hibernation. Manaka seems to have a friendly relationship with Kaname. Miuna Shiodome Miuna thought that she wanted Manaka to wake up, but realizes that she doesn't because Hikari loves her which made Miuna sad because she loved him. But after getting along with Manaka, she does everything she can so that Manaka can get her feelings back. When Manaka is around Miuna, she feels at ease. Miuna's ena is a result of Manaka giving her ena to her after she forgot all her memories of love so that she could protect Hikari because their feelings are very similar. Akira Shiotome After Manaka awakens after five years, Manaka was always playing with Akira. When he was at kindergarten, he wrote a letter to Manaka, saying "I love you". But, Manaka rejected him because she didn't know what "love" was. Because of this, she runs away and goes to her room and cries. After that, she then thanks him for the letter and she remembers what "love" means. Trivia * Her first name, Manaka, is written in hiragana(まなか), which has no special meaning. References Category:Characters Category:Female Category:Sea Humans Category:Anime